


The Web of Intermittent Corporeality

by welljob (coolstorylo)



Series: Mostly Void, Partially Starfleet [1]
Category: Welcome to Night Vale
Genre: AU - Starfleet, M/M, Not a crossover because reasons, Other characters to come later, Rated for possible later chapters, non-human cecil
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2014-01-23
Updated: 2014-03-22
Packaged: 2018-01-09 18:51:13
Rating: Explicit
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 5
Words: 5,555
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/1149545
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/coolstorylo/pseuds/welljob
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Mostly Void, Partially Starfleet 01: Carlos becomes the Science Officer aboard Starship NX-1213 as they head off on a new mission.</p><p>[This fic was originally called 'Mostly Void, Partially Starfleet' but has been changed to the first installment of a series under that title for a better overall structure.]</p>
            </blockquote>





	1. Prologue

**Author's Note:**

> Inspired by Oxytreza on Tumblr, specifically [this](http://oxytrezart.tumblr.com/post/74197373022/im-playing-a-lot-with-sci-fi-aus-recently) picture, this is my contribution to all the Night Vale AUs floating around.

“We’re happy to have you aboard, sir. You come very highly recommended, but I suppose you know that,” the peppy Ensign said cheerfully, causing Carlos to feel immensely uncomfortable as he struggled to come up with a response that didn’t sound egotistical. He opened his mouth to respond, but found he needn’t have bothered as the young woman was keeping up a concentrated stream of chatter as she walked.

“This is you!”

The Ensign turned on her heel to face him and indicated the door to his quarters. “I’m Vithya,” she told him, unnecessarily straightening her red uniform tunic. “I’m your girl!”

There was an awkward pause, and Carlos suppressed the urge to laugh at the young woman’s expression.

“Uh, I mean, not your girl, per se, just, I’m available for stuff. Work stuff! If you need help getting settled!” the Ensign stammered under the senior officer’s gaze.

“Understood, Ensign,” Carlos said softly, putting the girl out of her misery with a nod that indicated she was dismissed. As Vithya rounded the corner Carlos retreated into his quarters, chuckling softly to himself.

\--

Even at the start of his career Carlos could have had his pick of interesting work. His decision to join Starfleet had been criticised by every one of his peers and professors at university and despite doing good work with the military since then he still found his civilian friends were dismissive of his career.

He didn’t mind, especially now, he mused as he unpacked his meagre possessions. His recent promotion to Commander had been what he had been striving for since his PhD. It put him in charge of the Sciences division of a Starship, and that was the stuff of his childhood dreams. Screw the critics! He was right where he wanted to be.

The comms by his bed flashed red twice, indicating an incoming message. Carlos paused.

“All senior officers are to report to the main bridge for a briefing by John Peters - you know, the Captain - beginning in ten minutes,” a mellifluous baritone said evenly before the device went silent once more.

Feeling equally gleeful and terrified at being called to a meeting of senior officers, Carlos checked his uniform in the mirror, frowning for a moment at how long his hair was becoming, before leaving his quarters and heading towards the turbolift.

Commander Carlos was ready for duty.


	2. Meet the Crew

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Oh my goodness, thank you so much for your Kudoses (Kudi?) and kind comments! You warm my cold stone heart! I definitely have every intention of filling out this idea as much as possible.

Carlos was standing outside the turbolift, waiting for the doors to open, when he felt a viscous liquid slide down the back of his neck. He started to make a motion to wipe it away, but only managed a twitch of his hand before a voice he didn’t know spoke from behind him.

“Stay very still,” the voice said, and the woman’s tone told Carlos that it would be very stupid not to obey her.

There was silence for a moment, then a sound like a haunted microwave, then more silence.

The door to the turbolift opened and Carlos mumbled a question into the empty space, unsure whether or not he was now alone.

“May I go?”

“Oh, yes of course! I got him, don’t worry.”

“Him?” Carlos asked, wheeling around and then wishing he hadn’t. A beautiful, dark-skinned woman, wearing a gold uniform and the insignia of a First Officer, was hog-tying the eight spindly legs of a creature that looked to be part arachnid and part canine.

Carlos noticed that horrifying beast’s glassy eyes were staring blankly in his direction. He took a large step backwards.

“Don’t worry, I stunned him,” the woman said cheerfully. “He’s given me quite the run around!”

Reaching back to wipe the liquid from his neck, Carlos was unsurprised but no less alarmed to find it was saliva. “What-” he began, before stopping to bring his voice down to a normal octave. “What is that?”

“Well, we’ve been calling them Spider-Wolves, but we were kind of hoping you could tell us. You’re the new Science Officer, right?”

“Uhm, yes? I mean yes. That’s me. I’m Carlos.”

“Nice to meet you Carlos,” the woman said, standing up before turning on a communicator strapped to her wrist. “I got the last one. He’s outside the turbolift to the bridge.”

The First Officer smiled easily at Carlos, indicating the waiting lift, and he immediately liked her. “I’m Dana,” she offered. “Shall we get to the meeting? I’m sure everyone is anxious to meet you.”

 

 

In their thirty second ride to the bridge Dana chattered amiably to him, barely stopping to draw breath as she talked about the officers with whom she had been working for many years. Carlos was the newcomer, promoted because the ship’s last Science Officer had been killed in the line of duty. He made a mental note not to come across as too pleased with himself for his new appointment.

“And you know, you don’t have to be crazy to work here but it sure helps,” Dana deadpanned to him as they arrived at their destination, grinning and elbowing him in the ribs like she had made a great joke. Carlos laughed weakly. Her comment was strangely reminiscent of the rumours he had heard about the eccentric crew aboard the USS Night Sail. As everything about the ship was classified, he had never taken much stock in the wild theories about the team he had just become a member of, but he was starting to.

The feeling did not go away as Carlos stepped onto the bridge and was met with the faces of the people who would soon regularly be relying on his expertise in any and every scientific field. For the first time in a long while he felt out of his depth and stupid. The realisation that they all looked much fitter than he did, with his broad shoulders and post-graduate study belly, made him all the more self-conscious.

“Aren’t we a few short?” an Andorian wearing the blue Sciences uniform asked as Carlos busied himself by finding a point on the floor to stare at.

“Yes, but for good reason,” an older man in Command gold answered, before rounding on Carlos with a bright smile. “Ah, you must be Doctor-”

“Call me Carlos,” Carlos managed nervously.

John Peters - you know, the Captain - laughed genially and nodded. “Ah good, you’re as flexible about titles as we are. Carlos it is. Welcome to my ship!”

“Our ship,” Dana said firmly, indicating the others present. “You wouldn’t last five minutes without us, Peters.”

There was a ripple of laughter and the Captain heaved a sigh. “I don’t know why I put up with this.”

The Andorian stepped up to Carlos and shook his hand in a firm grip. “Theodore,” he said smoothly, indicating himself. “The other humans insist on calling me Teddy, so I suppose you may also do so.”

“Teddy is our Medical Officer,” Dana explained. As he moved away she leaned in closer to Carlos to mutter, “his bark is worse than his bite.”

“What brings you to us, apart from the position being suddenly vacant?” Teddy asked, and Carlos shifted uncomfortably. “Not just anyone wants to join the NX-1213 and get called in every time another ship encounters something they’re inadequately prepared to deal with.”

“I don’t know why,” Carlos countered. “Exploration of the most dangerous parts of this never-ending vastness sounds like the chance of a lifetime to me.”

The Captain laughed and Teddy raised an eyebrow in approval as the doors to the turbolift opened again.

“Cecil, come meet Carlos the new Science Officer!” Dana said enthusiastically, reaching out to grab the hand, no, appendage, of the newcomer. Cecil had hands, two, in the same place that Carlos’s were, but that wasn’t what Dana was holding. Rather, she gripped the end of one, suckered tentacle as she dragged the new person towards Carlos.

“Ce- Cecil,” the non-human crew member offered, putting out a humanoid hand. “Palmer. I’m - I’m Operations.”

“It’s nice to meet you Cecil,” Carlos replied, shaking the offered hand and wondering at the purple glow now emanating from the other officer. He realised Cecil’s was the voice that had called over the comms.

Carlos smiled warmly at Cecil and the glow increased as the other man ducked his head and moved to the Operations station. Carlos made a mental note to figure out where he was from, not recognising his species at all, before completely forgetting their quick interaction as the briefing started.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Unfulfilled? Come huddle with me on [tumblr](http://welljob.tumblr.com).


	3. Diplomacy

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Hello lovely people! You might have noticed I have changed the format a little, which I hope didn't make it too confusing to re-find the fic. I've set it up like this because I have plans for different stories and it made sense to create a series now. Anyway, thank you for your comment and kudos, it means the world to me.

“Your usual ship isn’t allowed past beta quadrant, you know? Vast uncharted regions of space - too dangerous. We are though, allowed, I mean, and the shit we’ve come back with-”

The lab’s head technician, a Pakistani man named Kiran with a warm Cockney drawl, puffed his cheeks out, blowing air out between his lips before continuing, “-amazing. Just amazing.”

Carlos opened his mouth to respond, but Kiran had already moved on to his next thought. “There’s those damn A.N.G.E.L.S too,” he said, throwing his hands into the air in exasperation. “I’d love to get my hands on one of them A.N.G.E.L.S. Just for five minutes even.”

“Um-” Carlos said, stopping himself just shy of raising his hand. Kiran either didn’t hear, or ignored him.

“We recently discovered a moon orbiting absolutely nothing. Just a totally useless moon. Couldn’t investigate it further but we’ll be going back as soon as we get clearance.”

“Well-” Carlos began.

“And of course there’s all that radiation we’ve been containing on lower port-side,” Kiran finished proudly. The shorter man beamed up at him nervously for approval and Carlos took a moment to take in the information he had been given.

“I-”

“All crew to prepare for mobilisation in fifteen minutes. Officers have been sent relevant case information.” 

Cecil’s voice flowed out of the comms as though he were reading out information that was personally interesting to him, rather than giving orders. Carlos sagged, taking off his glasses and rubbing his eyes for a moment.

“Anything you need me to help with?” he asked, replacing his spectacles as Kiran started to scurry away. The rest of his team was a flurry of activity, preparing the lab for the ship’s departure.

“Not at all, sir! Got it covered; don’t worry yourself,” Kiran said distractedly in what was clearly an effort to placate a senior officer. 

Carlos took a deep breath in through his nose before slowly letting it out through his mouth, wondering whether everyone felt this out of place in their first senior position. Faced with nothing to do, and feeling a little like he was in the way, Carlos went into his office and closed the door.

 

 

Collapsing into the comfortable, non-regulation chair for which he was breaking a few rules in order to save his back, Carlos found the incident report sitting on his monitor. Swiping at the file to open it and entering the necessary information to confirm who he was, he was startled as Cecil’s voice filled the room again. Bemused, he settled back in his seat to listen.

“Yesterday at twenty-one hundred hours a distress call from the USS Resistance was intercepted by a transport vessel stationed on the outside edge of the beta quadrant. When the USS Equanimity responded to the call they found the Resistance adrift, with no sign of life aboard, and that’s not even the most interesting part! We’re being called in because the crew of the Equanimity can’t tell if the Resistance is really there. It seems like it is, most of the time, but then it kind of just fades out, before reappearing again some time later. All tests run on the Resistance by the Equanimity have told them that it doesn’t exist. Which is funny, because it would make more sense for it to be there than not.”

Carlos barked out a short laugh, amused at the blithe way Cecil delivered the news of the other ship’s fate, before settling his expression into something more serious. After all, the deaths of fellow members of Starfleet was no laughing matter.

Creating a new screen next to his central monitor Carlos quickly jotted down a few notes and hypotheses about the problem. He listened to the recording a few more times, feeling guilty when he was unable to stop a smile from spreading across his face once more at Cecil’s choice of phrasing.

He was lost in thought when a distant roaring and gentle rumbling of equipment told him the ship was leaving its docking station. 

“Warp speed: 10 seconds and counting,” Cecil intoned over the comms. “Destination in twelve hours.”

Then there was the sudden feeling of simultaneously being thrown forward whilst remaining stationary and the ship was on its way. 

Carlos put his head between his knees for a moment, fighting the bile rising up his throat. He had never been good with transitioning into warp speed, and had received the dubious honour as a cadet of ‘Most Vomit Expelled On The Flight Simulator’. Almost fifteen years later the sensation still managed to give him vertigo.

“Ugh,” he managed weakly, sitting up and pushing his hair out of his eyes. He stood up and moved around the desk, holding on to the edge as though the gravity was not stable.

“I’m getting a cup of coffee,” he mumbled to his team as he left his office and they started to ask him questions. “I’ll be back soon and we’ll start planning what tests to run.”

 

 

Thankful he had made it to the Officers’ Mess without passing out or throwing up, Carlos set about entering in the specifications on the replicator for how he liked his coffee, before leaning heavily against the wall. He was breathing heavily and it wasn’t until he had retrieved his mug and taken a few restorative sips that he realised he wasn’t alone. 

Sitting at a table in one corner was Cecil, with two women Carlos didn’t recognise. The younger of the two looked a lot like Dana, but sported ridged Klingon facial features. She was looking in Carlos’s direction, scrutinising him with an expression that made him instantly feel like he must be guilty of something. This was clearly a woman not to be crossed.

The other individual was a tiny elderly woman, deeply engrossed in conversation with Cecil. As he approached, Carlos could see laugh lines around her eyes and mouth, as well as the affectionate way she had taken one of Cecil’s humanoid hands in her own. Out of respect or fondness, or possibly both, Cecil was slouching his thin frame in his seat, bringing his eye level closer to hers.

“Oh! Carlos!” the alien man said suddenly, looking up at the scientist through his glasses and rushing to stand. 

“Am I interrupting?” Carlos asked, smiling at Cecil as the other officer vehemently shook his head.

“No, not at all. I was just briefing Josie and Tamika on the mission. Did you get the file?”

“Yes, thank you for that. I listened to it straight away,” Carlos grinned. Cecil’s tentacles, previously relaxed over his chair and the table, whipped up and thrashed for a moment before settling around his waist. He nodded silently several times, staring at a fixed point above Carlos’s head.

“So you’re Carlos?” the elder of the two women said, the hint of a laugh in her voice. “I’m Josie. We’ve heard so much about you.”

“You have?” Carlos questioned, feeling awkward that he couldn’t say the same about her. 

“Yes! You should sit for a moment and talk,” Josie responded, indicating a chair.

“I’m sure Carlos has some very important science to be getting on with!” Cecil interjected shrilly.

“Well actually-” Carlos started but stopped as Josie held up her hand.

“Stay for a moment,” she chided, and Carlos sat, sneaking a nervous glance at Tamika, whose scowl seemed to deepen even further. The physicist turned his attention back to his other companions and found Cecil studiously staring at his notes whilst Josie smiled pleasantly and stared into the middle distance. He had never felt more awkward.

“I have read your resumé,” Tamika intimated suddenly. “Very impressive.”

“Oh, uh, thank you,” Carlos managed, swallowing nervously. “You’re the Tactical Officer, right?” 

“You’ve done your homework,” Tamika stated, raising an eyebrow at him. He took that as an affirmative. 

“I have waited a long time to be stationed on an NX Constitution Class,” he admitted. “I’ve been reading up about the ship’s specifications over the last few days. I guess I picked up a few names along the way.”

This seemed to satisfy the Klingon officer, because she grunted and picked up her papers. “Thanks for the brief, Cecil. I’ll keep you posted on security procedures,” she said, before nodding stiffly at Josie and Carlos and quickly leaving the room. 

The door had barely slid closed before lights appeared either side of Josie. The orbs, four of them, levitated in mid-air and hummed quietly, maintaining their positions until the elderly woman reached up and touched one of them. With that action they swarmed to her hand, bumping and rubbing against it with what Carlos would have described as affection if he was not certain that machines could not feel.

“I told them to stay out of sight while Tamika was present. She finds them a little professionally insulting,” Josie told Carlos, leaning closer as though she was divulging a great secret. 

“What are they?” he asked curiously, reaching out to touch one. The orb darted away just before his fingers reached it, moving to hover just behind Josie. She laughed.

“My A.N.G.E.L.S,” she said, nudging the hiding orb back into the open. 

“Uhhhh,” the experienced, well-read physicist managed.

“Anti-Newtonian Government Envoy Linked Security,” Cecil explained. “The UFOP provides them to Josie for her protection while she’s here. They help her with her Diplomatic duties too.”

Suddenly, Kiran’s comments made sense. Carlos couldn’t think of anything better than taking one of the A.N.G.E.L.S apart. His expression must have changed, because Josie frowned at him. 

“Don’t you get any funny ideas,” she told him. “They are encoded to respond only to me, and they don’t obey the laws of motion as you know them, so you won’t be able to catch them. They’re not for you to experiment on.”

Carlos flushed, feeling as embarrassed as he would have felt at being told off by his abuela. “Sorry,” he mumbled. 

Josie patted his hand as Cecil giggled softly. “That’s alright, dear,” she soothed. “I forgive you.”

“Carlos? Sir?” Carlos’s communicator said, interrupting the moment. “We’re ready for you in the lab.”

“Right, yes, one moment,” Carlos told Kiran, hurriedly standing and only just managing not to fall over. He picked up his mug and then put it down again to shake Josie’s hand. “Nice meeting you,” he told her before rushing from the room. 

As the door closed he glanced back and saw his two colleagues giggling over some private joke.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> All hail the Glow Cloud and also [Tumblr](http://welljob.tumblr.com). Thank you to my bff for being a patient editor.


	4. Preparations

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Sorry for the delay in updating! My Dad was in the hospital, so I didn't feel much like doing any writing. I'm only putting up a short update today, but after this week I should be able to update more regularly. Thanks for your understanding :)

Over the next eight hours Carlos and his team prepared everything they would need for the arrival at the USS Resistance. After collapsing in his bunk for a few hours of dreamless, exhausted sleep, it was a bleary-eyed Carlos who showered, shaved, and ignored breakfast in favour of his fourth cup of coffee in twelve hours. As the ship dropped out of warp Carlos was feeling all of his thirty-seven years. Despite that, he found himself cheering up immediately as he entered his lab and found his team standing around a projected 3-D model of the USS Resistance, spinning it this way and that and discussing their thoughts on the best initial course of action.

“Morning boss!” Kiran called cheerfully as Carlos drew closer with his PADD, clicking around for a moment before bringing up the notes they had made the previous shift. “Should we prepare the scout drones?”

“Mhm,” Carlos mumbled distractedly, flipping the model of the other ship and indicating the anterior waste collection points. “If we send them through at these points we can enter the codes to open the chutes. We’ll have to do a quick exit to avoid the refuse, but once the chute is in place again we will be able to drill through one of the interior walls without compromising the hull.”

“I don’t know if our drones are gonna manage all that,” one of the sub-lieutenants, Mira, offered, staring at the floor and shuffling her feet when Carlos frowned at her.

“Why not?” he asked, more tersely than he had meant to.

To her credit, Mira met his eyes when she replied. “They’re not that dextrous, sir. They’re pretty outdated. Most of them are point and shoot only.”

Carlos took off his glasses and pinched the bridge of his nose, feeling a tension headache setting in. “So basically what you’re saying is that we need to blast our way in and that if there are any people on board they’re going to be sucked into the vacuum of space?”

As his subordinates mumbled that they couldn’t do much about that Carlos took a deep breath. He wasn’t usually so grumpy, and he knew it wasn’t his team’s fault that the equipment had not been updated.

That fault lay with engineering, where all applications for new tech went. Carlos started to question their reticence, but scanning the body language of his team, including Kiran, he could immediately tell there was something he wasn’t being told.

“Why haven’t the drones been updated?” he asked Mira, having gained the most information from her so far.

“The Chief Engineer is unpleasant,” she mumbled.

“He’s a dick!” Kiran interjected. “We’ve sent a ton of applications down there and he just ignores them.”

Carlos laughed and shook his head slightly. He had dealt with tightfisted senior staff before and had used the same kind of descriptors for them. Being a scientist was nothing if not very expensive and eternally frustrating. Knowing this, he tried out his best encouraging smile on the other scientists.

“Find a way into that ship that will cause the least possible amount of damage,” he told them. “If we have to break through the hull I want to create an airlock so we protect what’s inside.”

Immediately the team sprung into action, each member assisting with their specialty or in another applicable area. Carlos watched, making sure everyone was clear about their tasks before he caught their attention again. “I’m going to go and see this Chief Engineer. Maybe a visit from another Officer will speed your applications along a bit,” he said optimistically.

The doubtful expressions of the science division team did not give him much hope.

 

 

 

 

 

Carlos took the turbolift down three levels to the engineering deck, mentally preparing himself for an argument with the ship’s Chief Engineer. As the doors opened he accosted the first red shirt he saw, flashing his badge and speaking firmly to indicate how serious he was.

“I need to speak to the Chief of Engineering,” he said, arms crossed across his chest as he held the gaze of the man in front of him. The crew member was rakishly thin, with small eyes that gave the impression he was scrutinising whatever he was looking at. He put down the fuel canister he was holding and stuck out a grease-stained palm for Carlos to shake.

“That’d be me, mate. Call me Steve,” he grinned, revealing his Australian accent and small, uneven teeth. “You must be Pamela’s replacement.”

“Oh,” Carlos said, taken aback by how genial the man was, considering the words his team had chosen to use. “Yes. I am. I’m Carlos. I’m sorry about Ms Winchell. Were you close?”

Steve barked out a short, hacking laugh and wiped his hands on his already grubby uniform. “Not at all. Between you and me, I was pretty glad to see the back of her. Pushy old broad.”

Carlos stared at the other officer, at a loss for words over his callous indifference for the life of a crew member. As he watched, Steve reached behind his ear and pulled out a piece of chewing gum, popping it into his mouth and chewing loudly.

“What can I do for you, Carl?” Steve asked, dropping into a seat and putting his feet up on the operations console. “Or is this a social call?”

“Well,” Carlos started, trying to muster up the speech he had been practicing on the way down. “You see, it’s just that, well, my team, we really need new drones otherwise it makes our work really difficult. And they told me you’re the man to talk to, so I thought I’d do that.”

As Carlos inwardly winced at his inability to play it cool, Steve inspected the filthy nails of his left hand. “Sure mate,” he said after a moment. “Whatever you need. I’ve been meaning to get around to those requisition slips.”

Carlos opened his mouth to argue before the response had fully sunk in. “It’s really importa-” he began, before drifting into silence. Steve grinned cheerfully at him.

“Thank you,” Carlos said weakly.

“No problem, man,” Steve said cheerfully. “You need anything you just ask ol’ Steve Carlsberg, okay?”

“I will,” Carlos murmured as Steve stood and guided him to the doors.

“Nice meeting you, mate! Drop by for a beer sometime!” Steve said before the doors closed between them and Carlos found himself in the turbolift feeling perplexed and oddly deflated.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Join me on [Tumblr](http://welljob.tumblr.com) to learn about my many feelings about Condos. Thanks to my friend Nicola for beta-ing. :)


	5. Rule Breakers

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Hello! I'm back! No excuse, just been struggling to get this chapter out. Hope you enjoy!

By the time Carlos had steadied his nerves and stepped back into the lab, a mere ten minutes after he left it, the well-educated and capable scientists of his team had managed to work themselves into a frenzy. 

“Can’t run tests on something that’s not there. Breaks the laws of physics,” a senior astroseismologist, who Carlos was fairly certain was called Gil, was muttering, his arms hanging listlessly at his sides as he stared at the projected model of the Resistance. “Against the laws of physics,” he mumbled, staring at the model as it flickered out of reality again.

“We’ve got a problem,” Kiran said, popping up behind Carlos and grinning like he had no idea what the word meant. 

“Just one?” Carlos asked, glancing back at the colleague who was now swiping his hand through the space where the projection had been and murmuring something about law breakers and physics police. 

“If there’s anyone aboard the old girl they’re maintaining radio silence, so we’ve no idea where to try and breach her,” Kiran reported cheerfully, pausing there to grin lasciviously at his own phrasing. “There’s no way to take any readings while she’s playing hide and seek so we’ve no idea how the structural integrity is effected.”

“It could be completely intact or thin enough to pass through,” Carlos nodded thoughtfully, finishing the thought for Kiran. He moved to the model as it flickered to life again, glancing out of the observation window to see the real Resistance had done the same thing. Turning the model around in order to better look at it, Carlos turned to the technician.

“Run some simulations on both variables,” he told him, before leaning in a little closer and adding, “get Gil to help you.”

Kiran nodded and turned quickly on his heel to grasp Gil by the shoulders. “Come on mate,” he said kindly to the bemused scientist, drawing him away from the flickering Resistance and over to a work station. 

A soft clearing of the throat behind Carlos caused him to wheel around, finding Mira standing patiently behind him holding a small rectangular box, the front face of which was a screen, attached to the top of a metal orb the size of a basketball. The top portion reminded Carlos of the entertainment systems used in the twentieth century for presenting electrical signals as visual and aural stimulus. It had a lot of cosmetic damage and was beeping in a way that would have seemed almost melancholy, if being gloomy was a trait that machines could demonstrate, which Carlos was mostly sure was not the case.

“This is our best drone,” Mira said, putting the rectangular device into Carlos’s hands. “We call him Telly.”

Telly beeped and whirred feebly, vibrating softly as Carlos lifted the machine to eye level and scrutinised it.

“This is the best one?” he asked incredulously, keeping his tone as even as he could manage.

“Yes, sir,” Mira said, somewhat stiffly.

“Well,” Carlos said heavily, passing the drone back to Mira, “it’s junk, but I suppose I can accept that for the time being.”

Telly’s screen lit up faintly for a second, and he emitted a long, low sound that drooped and trailed off at the end. Frowning at Carlos, Mira stroked the drone’s scratched outer casing. “He can hear you, sir,” she whispered, with a pointed look at the machine in her arms.

Carlos’s gaze went from Mira’s face, to the drone, and back again. 

“Of course he can,” he replied, resigned. He reached out and patted Telly, smiling in spite of himself when the machine whirred and flickered its lights. 

“If you can get me his schematics I think I can give him a tune up,” he told Mira. 

 

 

 

 

He was only partly sure his plan would work, but once Mira had retrieved Telly’s schematics and Carlos had spent some time poring over them he was feeling much more positive about the little AI. Seated at a work station while the other scientists were on break, surrounded by scraps of metal and some spare hinges he had found and muttering comforts to the drone whenever it made a distressed-sounding noise, Carlos was startled when a voice started speaking directly into his ear.

“Hello Carlos,” Cecil said brightly, his eyes widening in alarm as Carlos nearly fell out of his chair. “Oh! I didn’t mean to scare you!”

“You didn’t,” Carlos lied. 

“If you say so.” 

Carlos peered at Cecil, finding no suggestion that he was being anything other than completely sincere. The alien crew member beamed at him, and Carlos noticed how incredibly sharp his teeth appeared to be. “What can I help you with, Cecil?” he asked, fiddling with the wrench he had dropped onto the table when the other officer had surprised him.

“I just wanted to let you know that you can contact me any time with anything you want the crew to know,” Cecil told him eagerly. “Any time. You can get me directly on this line,” he added, passing Carlos a card with numbers written on it in a neat, cursive script. 

“Um, thanks,” Carlos mumbled, perplexed.

“Any time,” Cecil repeated.

Carlos smoothed his hair with one hand and twirled the card Cecil had given him through the fingers of the other. Cecil rocked back and forth on the balls of his feet. The seconds ticked by.

“I’ll make sure to keep that in mind,” Carlos blurted in order to break the silence. Cecil beamed. 

On the table Telly began to whir plaintively and as Carlos turned towards the drone he saw a defeated look pass across Cecil’s face.

“I guess I should-” Cecil said as he started to turn away.

“You don’t-” Carlos interrupted, grasping desperately for the right thing to say.

“You’re busy.”

“No! Well, I am-”

“It’s fine,” Cecil said decisively. “I’ll let you get back to work.”

And just like that, as silently as he had entered, Cecil left the lab and Carlos alone; the latter staring at the door for a moment whilst the former continued pondering its existence as a collection of inanimate objects.

 

 

 

 

Walking slowly behind his new creation, Carlos smiled to himself. Telly was far from perfect, but he would certainly manage the job at hand. 

Well, he would probably manage it. 

He might manage it.

Carlos watched as Telly floated forward using the new propellor system that Carlos had installed, and came to rest next to Mira. 

“You fixed him!” she crowed, patting Telly as he nudged up against her. Then, as she managed to get a better look at the AI, her eyes widened and she began to look more skeptical. “What are those?” she asked.

“You don’t like them?” Carlos asked, slightly hurt by her tone. He personally felt that the pair of simplistic arms he had constructed out of spare scraps of metal and some old hinges were a work of engineering genius. One arm had a makeshift claw while the other simply finished in a rounded point, mostly because Carlos had run out of materials.

“I’m calling them the Grabber and the Poker,” he told her. 

“Uh huh,” Mira said doubtfully.

“Telly likes them,” Carlos pointed out. The AI chirruped happily, inexpertly waving his new arms around in jerky, haphazard motions and knocking Mira’s work off the table. He motored across the room back to Carlos and hovered behind him, beeping and whirring anxiously. 

Mira laughed. “It seems like you two are friends, at least,” she commented and Carlos chuckled as he came to help her clean up the mess Telly had made. 

Kiran appeared, followed by a calmer looking Gil. 

“Well I’ll be,” Kiran said, watching Telly pick up items and hand them to Carlos. “I didn’t think he was salvageable.”

“We ran those simulations,” Gil said, passing Carlos their calculated figures, “and we’ve had an idea.”

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Aw, look how cute it is! It has big eyes, like a duck! It's my [tumblr](http://welljob.tumblr.com)!


End file.
